Another post about this bloody Catalan shit, you might think, but it’s just that I can’t help it! I’m not very into politics neither sports here in Australia or Brissie, so the only thing I can do at the moment is to show you part of my baggage and later I’ll talk about aussie staff…

And no, I haven’t written anything yet about that damn article about queenslander-style houses that I promised you weeks or months ago.

But anyway, I just want to announce you that I’m spreading aussie culture around Catalonia through a friend’s blog about english lessons and I’ve written about Aussie English. A completely different language here down under from English, sometimes 😉

Yes, this blog is written in Catalan as well, but I think its fair sharing this with you.

This is a short story from David Miró, published in Catalan, and translated to English by myself, in the Diari ARA of Today. Enjoy!

Pere couldn’t believe what was he living at the moment. There he was: just landed in Madrid, at Moncloa’s press room and chatting with a corrillo of veteran journalists with the State Secretary of Communication, Félix Monteira. Certainly, he has been very lucky. The titular correspondent of the radio station was sick and the politics editor found him in the kitchen of the office and state him “I need somebody to go to Madrid now. How you feel about that?” At first, he was frozen. He didn’t knew what to answer. At last he was able to articulate “Yes, I suppose. Yes, sure. What’s the beef?”

“Zapatero has convened a press conference to talk about the crisis. Seems that there will be some important news and the bastard of Robert just had the great occurrence to become sick. Talk to Eva to find the tickets and a taxi to go to the damn airport. Once you’ll be there we’ll talk”.

Again, I’m promoting Catalan products to you, Aussies. No worries, I’ll use next entry to explain my Catalan fellas what is a Queenslander home and why is build over pillars. I do promise it solemnly.

But today I visited a website of a book written in english about Catalonia. Of course, targeted mainly to foreigner people. But guess what, they don’t sell the book online! And the tour presentation of the book is mainly within Catalonia! Is like writing a tourist guide of Brisbane and sell it to the same Brisbanites. Well, yes, I usually bought a couple of tourist guides of Barcelona as well, but it was for professional affairs (and is something to be aware of, some of this kind of guides lie like Jim Carrey in “Liar Liar” about history and why the places to visit are places to visit… For not to mention the restaurants to go). Continue reading →

Yes, I know and I do understand completely that most of you don’t know any word in Spanish that is not “dos cervezas, por favor”. But you can always expand your horizons and this is why I decided to make this blog, as well.

This is a band from Barcelona, fellas of mine, called Los Rotos. And they do good Rock and Roll. Yes, in Spanish. So what?

This is the new single of their new EP “Rojo” and is called “Retorica II”

No offences for those NRL fans, I do like Rugby League as well, but I just prefer Rugby Union because it has real contact. Yes, it’s true, there is not a serious, massive or popular Rugby Union competition in Spain, as the main sport is real football, that you call, mistakenly “soccer”. But in Catalonia Rugby Union has its fans, and in Northern Catalonia (the French part) the USAP from Perpignan is one of the best Rugby Union teams in the French league. And guess what, the Catalan Rugby Federation was one of the founder members of FIRA-AER, although since the Francoism this honour has fallen to the Spanish Rugby Federation. Several attempts to restore the Catalan Federation as a founder member (so as well as a full member) have been done several times unsuccessfully. Shame on all of them.

Because my best friend here in Australia introduced me.

As I introduced him to watch FC Barcelona matches on SBS at 4.45 am. Yes, it’s a pain in the ass, but I was fresh as a rose to watch the game, he was always felling asleep. But he really tried to follow the games. This is real friendship, mates, and the rest is bollocks. When you are living in Queensland is much better, and easier for everybody to watch a Reds game at night or at noon (because SuperRugby has also this time shift if they are playing in South Africa or in New Zealand) with a barbie and a beer in your hand, with a reasonably good temperature (let’s admit that, it’s winter and when I’m writing this I’m barefoot and with a short-sleeve tee, this is not proper winter!), rather than watching a football match very early in the morning, with a coffee, when football matches are always watched with a beer in the hand, as well.

Because Queensland Reds is the team from where I’m living right now.

Well, yes. This a very weak excuse as Brisbane is plenty of North Queensland Cowboys fans. And if I were living in Madrid at any way I’d support Real Madrid or Atlético de Madrid (maybe the Rayo Vallecano) but I didn’t had any team to support when I came here. So now I am Red as well!

Quade Cooper

Yes, if FC Barcelona has Leo Messi, the best real football player at the moment, (one day I’ll write one post about what do you Aussies understand for “football” and why we europeans don’t like that real football is so-called “soccer”) and even maybe the best one ever (no bullshit), Queensland Reds has Quade Cooper, the best Rugby Union player at the moment. But this is not finishing here. Since I knew he was accused of burglary, my sympathy for him was bigger. A guy who has it all: money, a gorgeous girlfriend, success in sport… A burglary?? This is, without a doubt, better than the life of Maradona. By the way, when Cooper is kicking an extra point my friend and his family call him “Laptop”. Because the position of his arms before the kick. Yes, he is carrying a stolen laptop, isn’t he??? Well, anyway. Quade Cooper is really awesome.

Heaps more!

Just let’s say that “I feel it”.

So, for these and much more reasons, tonight I’ll be very very very happy if Queensland Reds will win the SuperRugby Final vs the Crusaders.

For those who don’t know me, let me introduce myself. My name is Marc, I’m spending this year in Brisbane studying a Master of International Relations at UQ. And I’m from Catalonia, by the way. Catalonia is a very little country, nowadays part of Spain and France. But right now I’m not gonna go very deep insight about this, but if you subscribe or follow my blog regularly you will get into it. But if you want, you can take a look about that in wikipedia. Oh, maybe it would be easier if I said I come from BARCELONA, isn’t it? Yes, I think so.

Well, now that you know who am I, I’m going to explain you what is going to be this blog. Of course it is going to be about my point of view about Australians! And very particularly about Queenslanders. And if we have to go deeper, about Brisbanites. Yes, let’s face it. Brisbane is not the most exciting city in the world, but it have a lot of wonders, as well. It is impossible to see this green in any way in Barcelona. Or something too easy as going in a ferry through the river as a public transportation… Well, of course in Barcelona we don’t have a river like the Brisbane. But going to uni by ferry is pretty cool! Looking at the stars by night in the inner suburbs is something unthinkable in all the metropolitan area, as well.

Brisbane has its pros, and its cons, as like other city in the world. And Australia as well, so one of the goals of this blog (if it happens, I shave my head) is to connect this two cultures, pretty similar (because we are “civilised” western countries blah blah blah) but in other ways we are light ages one from each other.

Let’s face it! There are not a lot of catalans in Brisbane! And if there are more than the ones of my acquaintance, another goal of this blog is “fer pinya”, that in catalan means “doing pineapple”… Yes, we catalans are nuts.

So, as a starter for this intercultural exchange. This is something you aussies got to learn to do from catalans.

Castells.

And this is something I really enjoyed yesterday night. Queenslander! Queenslander!

Who am I?

I just came to Australia to study a Master of International Relations, nothing serious. This blog is about my catalan point-of-view of this journey, and particularly about the place where I'm living now. If you want to check my other blog in catalan (if you really know catalan) you can go to http://unaltreblogmes.wordpress.com. Cheers!

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